The Mattress Trap
by fruityfruityfruitloops
Summary: Stiles accidentally falls asleep on a display mattress at a mattress store and chaos ensues as the cute store employee who woke him up shows up everywhere he goes.


Stiles stared at the ceiling in mute horror. The florescent light strips felt like spotlights presenting his public humiliation to the world. The chorus of girls giggling quietly in the distance certainly didn't help. He tried desperately to evaporate, but with no success. The store employee shook him again. "Sir? Are you awake? You can't sleep on the display mattresses. Sir?"

Stiles blushed furiously, gritted his teeth, and clambered off the mattress, his eyes holding steady on the floor the entire time. This was humiliating. He'd only been on that mattress for less than a minute, how could he have fallen asleep? He blamed the store. It was the only explanation that made any sense. This was the 4th Enya song they had played in 20 minutes, and almost all of her songs could double as lullabies. Plus, it was oddly warm in here. Not uncomfortable, just warmer than you'd expect a warehouse like store to be. It all made sense. They were trying to get their customers sleepy. That way, anytime they lay down on a mattress, the customer would be like 'Wow, I just got on this mattress and I'm already sleepy. I think I'll buy it!' They were very tricky, these mattress salesmen.

In the meantime, Stiles' human alarm clock had gently taken hold of his forearm and helped him slide off the mattress. Stiles made the mistake of looking him in the eye to thank him, and he briefly forgot how to put words into sentences. This guy was gorgeous. Deep dark brown eyes, beautifully tan skin, and a smile that actually stopped Stiles' heart for a hot second. "I, uh- I'm sorry, thank you, I'm so sorry…" he stammered. "I-I really didn't mean to fall asleep, uh, Scott," he said, glancing at the nametag on his chest. Gods, he had a great body.

Scott chuckled. "You'd be surprised how often it happens. You'd be even more surprised how often people try to hook up in the middle of the showroom. I mean, that's one way to get to know the mattress, I guess."

Stiles smiled. At least this guy was nice. The chorus of gigglers had moved on to the memory foam, judging the imprints of their asses, and any other onlookers had long since dispersed, leaving Scott and Stiles alone. He rubbed the back of his head restlessly. "So, I guess I'm going to head home. Again, sorry about falling asleep on your merchandise," he said sheepishly.

"Oh, are you sure?" Scott asked, surprised. "You didn't see much of the store. I could give you a tour if you want." He had a genuine sincerity that made him adorable and almost irresistible.

But Stiles couldn't risk embarrassing himself again. He had too much pride. All right, that was lie, but he'd never forgive himself if he made a fool out of himself twice in front of a guy as sweet and as hot as Scott. "I'd like to, but I can't. This was really just kind of a, uh…test drive. Just like, a quick peek inside to see if there was anything in here for me. So I should, uh, leave and process everything. Review my mental notes before I forget them. But thanks anyway."

Scott gave him a warm smile. "All right, well then at least take my card. If you have any questions, feel free to call me or drop by. I hope to see you again." Stiles took the card from his outstretched hand, blushed a little more, then turned tail and fled.

* * *

It wasn't that Stiles didn't like school. Quite the contrary, in fact. Stiles enjoyed the learning and the discussing that came along exploring any given topic. The problem was that unless something was particularly engaging, he had a hard tome focusing. It was partly his ADHD, and partly his highly active imagination carrying him away at the first opportunity it got.

Inattentive professors and lecture halls were a perfect storm for getting absolutely nothing done. And this professor wasn't even inattentive. She was just apathetic when it came to the goings on in her class. As long as no one was being disruptive or bleeding profusely, she just couldn't be bothered. And the fact that this class was in a lecture hall meant that Stiles was just another face in the crowd. As long as he wasn't looking at gruesome murders or porn (both of which Stiles had witnessed in this class alone), he was free to just drift off.

On this particular day, Stiles had made the poor decision to sit in the back of the room, which only exacerbated his attention problem. This upset him a little bit because the topic was evolution, a concept that had interested him ever since he'd vaguely learned that humans evolved from monkeys in third grade. That's what he got for being late. He was studying all of his classmates and imagining their lives. He'd never really paid attention to them before, but one girl caught her eye.

She was on Pinterest looking at costumes, saving particularly creative or realistic ones. There were costumes of superheroes and characters from books and TV, and they all looked pretty good, but what caught his eye was that they were all male characters being portrayed by females. He was thinking that she must just be an androgynous cosplayer, but then she moved over to androgynous people wearing men's suits, and Stiles concluded (quite logically, if you asked him) that she must be a drag king. And that got him started him started creating backstories for everyone of any kind of interest.

There was a stereotypical "arrives 15 minutes late with Starbucks" girl in the fourth row actually nursing a huge cup of Starbucks that Stiles decided was a pre-law student recovering from an all-night study session for her Criminal Psychology class. And the stoner-looking dude two rows ahead of him was an English and Business Management double major and the heir to a huge publishing empire. And the next one was actually true. The hot jock towards Stiles' 2 o'clock was doing his best to conceal a massive boner that he'd gotten from watching the hot guy sitting directly in front of him. And that hottie-

Crap on a cracker. That hottie was the guy from the mattress store. The one that had woken him up. Crappity-Crap McCrapperston. How was he here? And of all places, in Stiles' biology class? This was a class he actually enjoyed, and now the rest of the semester would be spent failing tests while staring at the back of his head.

Scott. That was his name. Stiles couldn't forget a single moment of that mortifying experience, especially Scott's nametag stuck onto his broad, beefy, Disney prince chest. He couldn't stay here now. He'd have to leave. Not only could he not concentrate anymore, he could feel a panic attack coming on. His heart was rapidly thudding in his chest and he was panting and sweating like an asthmatic running a marathon.

He packed his things as quickly and quietly as he could, glad that his professor wasn't one that would call him out or mark him down for leaving early. As he stood up, Stiles could feel his body numbing. He shuffled through his row, trying to reach the aisle without accidentally kicking too many peoples' ankles.

When he finally made it to the aisle, he rushed for the door. Unfortunately, with his body not cooperating fully, he missed a step and fell flat on his face, letting out a small yelp as he descended. He got up slowly, rubbing his cheek gingerly where he had fallen on it. The class had burst into giggles, and the teacher didn't help. She looked at him critically before saying, "Now, under Darwin's model, this student probably will not live long enough to reproduce, thus weeding out any inferior genes he might have passed on." Unable to help himself, he glanced over at Scott, who was doing his best to stifle his laughter. Stiles pushed open the door to the room, cheeks burning and tears of humiliation forming in his eyes.

* * *

Jungle, Beacon Hill's resident gay club, was booming. Spring Break was fast approaching, and all of the students at Beacon Hills Community College were already descending into party mode. The drag queens on stage were twirling and jumping into splits big enough to crack the stage and Beacon Hills' queer population were practically having sex on the dance floor. Everybody was having a good time.

Well, everyone except for a gloomy Stiles and his best friend Lydia, who was currently being forced to listen to Stiles' bellyaching. "You don't know HOW bad it was though," Stiles moaned. "I really honestly wish that I had cracked my skull on the stairs, or at least gotten something like a concussion. At least that way they would have stopped laughing. And you know what the worst part is?"

"No, no I really don't," she said flatly.

Stiles sighed a great sigh. "I would've asked him out is none of this had ever happened. I mean, he's sweet, he's gentle, and he's so hot he could replace the sun. And now we'll never be together. I mean, what if we could have gotten married? We could have had a house and some cats and a couple of kids-well, maybe not kids, I don't know how I feel about having kids yet, but we could've-"

Lydia motioned for the bartender to refill her Cosmo. "Drown it in vodka," she muttered. "If I finish that drink and I'm still only buzzed, you'll regret it." She turned back to Stiles, who was doing his best to drink a martini that was already gone. "Look," she said, trying to pretend her exasperation was consolation, "First of all, I doubt it was as bad as you think it was. You have a tendency toward histrionics. Second, sometimes surprising things can come out of our biggest embarrassments, I mean, take Allison and me-"

Stiles groaned. "PLEASE don't rub your perfect relationship with your perfect girlfriend in my face. I get enough of that when you two invite me to brunch." The bartender returned with their drinks, which Lydia immediately downed while simultaneously motioning for another one. Stiles just slowly swirled his around, staring into it sadly.

Lydia rolled her eyes. Stiles could be so melodramatic sometimes. "All right, look," she said. "you made a couple of dumb mistakes, nothing that you can't be redeemed from. You should still ask him out, I'm about 94% sure he'll ask you out. Trust me, I'm a math major. Best case scenario, you end up together forever and have a cute story to tell your potential children. Worst case, you bang him a couple times and break up. I'm really not seeing a downside here. Either way, buck up and get the job done. I'm gonna go dance up on my girlfriend now. Excuse me."

She grabbed third Cosmo from the bartender's hand and danced her way to the floor, where a smiley, dimply Allison was waiting for her. Stiles turned back to his martini. He took a couple of sips as he looked glumly around the bar. There were lots of cute couples around, cuddling and drinking and laughing. Surely some of them had stories as embarrassing as Stiles. Maybe Lydia was right.

He was startled out of his thoughts when the bartender pushed a glass of water and a couple of Advil in front of him. "Compliments of that hottie over there," he said, pointing across the bar with a grin. Stiles already knew before he looked that it was Scott. Because of course it was. Who else would it be? Scott beamed an adorable smile and waved. Stiles, in return, smiled weakly and raised his martini in halfhearted thanks. He didn't know if the Advil was in reference to his fall or something else, but either way, it just felt condescending. And it hurt. And when Scott looked away, he slid off his seat and snuck out of the bar.

* * *

Stiles stumbled into the Beanery nursing a hangover like the world had never seen. After his third run-in with Scott at Jungle, he had hit up three other bars and drank until he couldn't feel anymore, which took a while. And Stiles, who weighed 150 pounds only he had eaten half of the menu at McDonalds, was a lightweight.

He managed to maneuver his way over to the counter, only knocking into one table, which he quietly slurred an apology to. He blinked twice and squinted at the menu. All the drinks were names with bean puns worked in. Normally he thought it was funny, but now he couldn't remember what a single one of them meant and it was kind of irritating. "I'll…I'll have the…goodness, I don't know…" he said, rubbing his temple.

"Had a little bit too much fun last night? Can I recommend the Harry Houbeani? It'll make your hangover disappear. Get it?" the barista said. "Also, would you like to try our Hangover Sandwich? Two eggs and two sausages on a English muffin."

Stiles groaned. "That sounds disgusting. I'll take two." Half an hour later, his hangover remedies seemed to have done their jobs. His retinas didn't seem like they were burning constantly and his headache had reduced itself from a screaming agony to a dull roar. He was even beginning to think that today might end up being a decent day until Scott walked in.

Seriously, was the guy stalking him? This was four times in one week. It was like the universe had a giant middle finger and enjoyed slapping Stiles around with it. Scott ordered his drink and then turned around to find somewhere to sit. His eyes inevitably landed on Stiles. He tensed up for a second then walked over slowly.

"Is this seat taken?" he asked softly. Stiles shook his head. Might as well bite the bullet and get this over with. He stared into the final dregs of his coffee until Scott said something. "I didn't see you leave last night. Are you okay?"

Stiles sighed. "Yeah, I had a little too much to drink last night. I kind of needed to be on my own." Which wasn't entirely a lie. He did want to be on his own. He just mostly wanted to leave Scott behind.

Scott pursed his lips. "I could tell. You looked a little hammered. Rough week?"

"You should know. You were there for most of it," Stiles said, maybe a little too roughly. Ah, screw it. "And what was with the Advil? Was that a reference to me falling? Like, I needed painkillers for my 'wounded pride' or something? Because that one hurt."

Scott scrunched his shoulders. Stiles could tell that he was uncomfortable, and maybe a touch guilty. It felt a little good. "No, it…it wasn't anything like that. It was more…I could tell that you were drinking kind of heavy, so I thought…I don't know, it might be a cute way to get you to ease up. I didn't-I didn't want-"

"What, you didn't want feel guilty or be responsible for someone else's crappy time?"

Scott shook his head, looking very much like a guilty puppy. Stiles hated how cute it was. "No, I-I didn't want…I didn't want to see a cute guy hurt himself over a couple of dumb, embarrassing moments." Well, crap. Now Stiles felt like the bad guy. Somehow he always did. Scott stood up. "Look, I'm sorry. About everything. I should go."

Stiles grabbed his hand before he could walk away. He wished that Scott's hand in his didn't make him feel all tingly, but he still liked it. "Wait," he said reluctantly, "don't go. We should…let's talk this out."

"…Okay," Scott replied, blushing slightly. Stiles couldn't help but notice he didn't pull his hand away.

Stiles bit his lip before speaking. "All right, I'm sorry I gave you crap for the Advil thing. Any other night and I would have fallen out of my chair with how cute it was. And I'm sorry if I worried you or made you feel bad about worrying. I have a bad habit of making a big deal out of things. One of my friends calls it a "tendency toward histrionics". I just…I get anxious about things, and if things go poorly then I just obsess over them. Like, to the point where I'll be convinced that someone hates me or is constantly annoyed by me when the really just don't care. It's the worst. I just can't help it."

Scott nodded, squeezing Stiles' hand gently. Stiles heart fluttered while Scott talked. "I get it. I think we all do that sometimes. In Biology, I felt so bad about laughing that I couldn't even pay attention for the rest of the class. I managed to misspell Darwin's name four different ways. And…can I tell you a secret? I haven't been able to get the picture of you sleeping on that mattress out of my head. You just looked so peaceful and relaxed that I wanted to curl right up next to you."

Stiles blushed furiously. He couldn't help but smile a little bit. Scott grinned an uneven grin that made warmth explode in Stiles' chest. "Can I ask you something?" he asked. Scott nodded. "What's the deal with that mattress store? Is it designed to make people fall asleep? Because I was drowsy within five minutes of walking in."

Scott laughed a beautiful, his brown eyes crinkling in the corners. "Yeah" he admitted, "it was the manager's idea. That way when people test the mattresses, they think that it's so comfortable that they're immediately sleepy."

"I KNEW IT," Stiles crowed, eliciting another laugh from Scott. His head pounded with the sudden volume increase, but he didn't care. He'd do anything to hear that laugh again. And plus, that manager might be onto something. He hadn't gotten the mattress, but he'd gotten something much better out of the deal.


End file.
